


Reminiscent

by vands88



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Childhood Trauma, Death, Euthanasia, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 19:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vands88/pseuds/vands88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>THIS IS REALLY NOT A HAPPY FIC. CHECK THE TAGS BEFORE PROCEEDING. </p>
<p>Dean & Sam's relationship is up to how you interpret handholding & their childhood.</p>
<p>Not much canon knowledge needed, but set when the angels have fallen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reminiscent

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot say this enough, please check the tags and summary before reading. I wrote this fic for therapy because cancer fucking sucks but this is normally the kind of trigger-inducing fuckfest that I personally stay away from so, you know, don't say I didn't warn you.

In movies, they make it seem like the only thing wrong with the dying man is the tube around his nose.

Sometimes before the death scene (where meaningful words are whispered over the crescendo of an unseen string quartet) they might struggle for breath…but they never actually _look_ like they’re dying, do they? It must be hard to make actors that shrunk. Yellow.  Weak. Hard to get a realistic distribution of drool spittle when they speak.

The truth is, not once did anyone say that dying men turn into their father overnight. That when Sam’s cheeks were hollowed out by the disease, the shape of his skull would remind Dean of John Winchester where before there had been no such resemblance.

Sam sleeps most of the time (a dry rattling noise with every unconscious inhale because the oxygen makes his throat dry) and even when he is awake, his eyes are so glazed over that he is no more present in the conversation than he would be asleep.

It had happened so quickly. Far more quickly than these things are meant to happen. Cancer is meant to eat away at you slowly; not take over every corner of the body in less than a month. It was so vicious that Dean had just assumed something supernatural had to be behind it – a dick angel with an agenda or a crossroads demon hoping for a quick deal – and so he hadn’t believed the doctor when cancer had been her only explanation. Dean had poured over lore, called in every favour from every friend he had left, and even drove to Nevada for a possibly lead. After all they’d been through, Sam couldn’t die from something as human as cancer; it wasn’t _fitting_. And in the two weeks that Dean had driven across the country, trying to fix it, the doctors had begun to say “end stage” between medical terms and by the time he’d returned, Sam had changed into this sunken (metaphorical) ghost of the brother he once knew.

Dean places the skeletal hand between his. Sam is now too weak to raise his own arms. Sam’s face turns towards him but his eyelids are drooping and his long hair (which was once Sam’s pride and Dean’s favorite joke) is now dragged across the pillow, thin and greasy. It has probably been several days since it was washed.

“I’ve been praying every night,” Dean whispers, “To Cas. Hell, to every angel we ever met. But nothing. Guess there’s no one left up there to listen…”

Dean can barely hear Sam’s reply over the chatter in the ward, “Dad’ll be home soon. Should get up.”

Dean shakes his head and blinks back tears. Sam has been confused this last week, but never this bad. He drops his head into the bedcovers so Sam can’t see his red eyes. “It’s okay, Sammy. It’s just me and you for a while longer, okay?”

“Oh,” Sam says, but it is so distant that Dean knows he has already forgotten their conversation.

“I wish I could take you away somewhere, even just to a crappy motel. This isn’t…this isn’t you Sammy. But I…” Dean looks to the tubes coming from his brother’s groin and stomach - the colours of yellow and red, becoming closer to the same colour every day – and knows that even if he could sneak his brother out, they wouldn’t make it far at all, “I wouldn’t want to take you away from the doc,” Dean lies, “Y’know, I think she’s got the hots for you.”

It’s enough pretence to produce a weak smile from Sam.

“They’re gonna transfer you to someplace a little quieter soon anyway… that might be… ” Dean trails off because every adjective that flits through his mind is unspeakable. Nice? No. Nowhere designed to watch people dying could ever be _nice_. Dean shakes his head, “Anyway. I’ll be there.”

“Take care of me,” Sam gasps between breaths.

“Yeah Sammy, that’s what I’m gonna do. That’s what I’ve always done, remember? So yeah, I’m gonna be here.”

Sam thrashes his head violently against the pillow. “No. No.”

In Sam’s distress, his hand is pulled from Dean’s grasp in a sudden display of strength. Dean falls back against his plastic chair, not sure what to do as he watches Sam recover from his outburst; stuttering breaths that seem deafening to Dean’s ears.

“Take,” Sam lets his hand fall back onto his brother’s, “CARE.” And his eyes bore into Dean’s with a keen awareness that Dean hasn’t seen in days.

Dean knows exactly what Sam wants.

He forgets to breathe but Sam’s quick and gasping breaths do enough work for the both of them.

And Dean shouldn’t be surprised; this had been their plan after all. John had taken them to a hospital like this when Sam was ten years old because a fellow hunter was in critical care. Sam had looked through the windows of the wards and had made Dean promise that they wouldn’t end up there.

“They look dead,” Sam had said, pressed against the glass, “But they’re not.”

Dean was taller then and had rested his hand on his shoulder, “I know. But don’t worry Sammy. We’re not ever gonna end up like them.”

“We’re not?”

“No, we’re hunters,” Dean had smirked, “We gotta die heroically.”

“But what if I don’t wanna die?” Sam had asked with an unusual innocence, “What if I wanna grow old?”

“Old people die too, idiot. Guess what you’re looking at right now.”

Sam’s face had fallen and Dean had swallowed his guilt, “It’s not gonna happen Sammy, don’t think about it.”

“Promise me?” Sam had asked.

“What?”

“Promise me I won’t ever be left here. Dead but not-dead. Promise me, please Dean, if it ever happens, to…before it, please to - ”

Sam had trailed off but looked to Dean for understanding. This had not been their first conversation about death. Sam had fully understood the concept by the time he was six; they had gone to a church funeral and had told Dean he was stupid for ever thinking that there was an afterlife. They had had enough close calls since then that Dean knew exactly what Sam would ask before he had even said it.

“Take care of you?” Dean had asked. He had heard John use the phrase once to a demon vessel that was bleeding out on the floor of a garage. It had seemed to bring her comfort.

Sam had nodded and had clutched Dean’s hand, horrified, and looked up to his big brother for assurance. And so Dean had promised.

Naively, at the age of fourteen, Dean had thought it would never actually happen. It was impossible to imagine them as adults yet alone ending up someplace like this, and he figured that even if it did happen, then he would be old enough by that point to have worked out how to fix it.

He never thought the childish promise would come back to haunt him.

Dean rubs his thumb comfortingly over Sam’s hand, avoiding the intravenous tube that protrudes from between the bones.

Dean would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it. He had formed a plan as soon as the C-word was mentioned to break Sam out of his depressing place and take him to a rumoured demon dive three towns away where they could take out as many hellspawn as they could before they both fell to their deaths.

But, ultimately, every plan ends the same way: Sam dies. And how is one way better than another? At least this way is pain-free and Dean can be there holding his hand.

And that is how he justifies his selfishness.

“I can’t,” Dean chokes out, “Sammy, I’m sorry, I know I promised but I can’t pull the trigger. Ever. On you. I’m sorry I was every stupid enough to think that I could. I know it’s what you want, you don’t want to be here anymore than I want to see you – but –“

Dean feels Sam’s hand crawl into his hair, from where he is (apparently) crying against the bedcovers. It must take every ounce of strength that Sam has and once his palm is atop his head, it rests, and feels far too small, and light, and cold.

“I’m a coward, okay?” Dean says, “And I’m a selfish son-of-a-bitch. Not gonna let you go a second sooner than I have to. ‘Cos you’re gonna go up to those goddamn pearly gates and tell them where to shove it, right? So ‘til that happens, I’m gonna wait right here.”

Dean expects to see Sam asleep when he eventually raises his head, but to his surprise, his brother’s eyes are still open and not as vacant as he has become accustomed to seeing.

Sam blinks once, twice, and then, “Okay,” he sighs, “That’s okay. But Dean. No miracles. This time? Gonna die.”

Dean shakes his head. He knows it’s true but he also knows that it can’t possibly be true. Every time they lose hope, the smallest window opens, and they find themselves on an aeroplane miles above the destruction they caused; safe, together, and ready to do it all again.

But this time, Sam is right, and there is no miracle.

It happens on a Tuesday.

Dean is in the line to buy club sandwich for lunch and some jello for Sam. Dean has taken to pushing small pieces of jello through his brother’s cracked lips during in his more conscious moments; Sam can do no more than suck on the substance until it dissolves, but at least it keeps his mouth moist enough that he can sometimes speak. It’s mostly nonsense. Whispered words and detached phrases. Their last coherent conversation was two days ago about the number of computers in public libraries.

He walks the three floors back up to Sam’s room but is halted by a nurse halfway down the corridor. She speaks but the words are not necessary nor heard. The door to Sam’s room is shut and the doctor is outside with slouched shoulders. It is strange that she is so affected. Hospital staff should be used to death. Maybe the doctor does have the hots for Sam after all.

_Did._ Past tense.

All their jokes are now in past tense. All their stories. Their lives.

Past tense.

Dean drops the jello.

He might be crying. He might be punching the wall. He might be escaping to the Impala. He might be running to hold Sam in his arms. He might be laughing. He might be falling.

He is doing all of these, and none of these, at once.

Dean has jello on his shoes and his brother is behind a closed door and none of this is like the movies. 


End file.
